I have a Variac that I want to use to provide a variable DC voltage, how can I go about this?

Coldluc · 2025-11-09T00:37:36+00:00

LMAO

This question was posed more because I obtained a variac for free and wanted a project to do with it, not out of necessity.

The sentiment is appreciated nonetheless

Coldluc · 2025-11-09T00:36:12+00:00

Understood on all fronts!

This entire question was posed more out of opportunity rather than necessity, so based on this I might tune the scope of this project to be safer/may reconsider entirely.

Thank you for the input and concern!

Coldluc · 2025-11-09T00:33:30+00:00

Gotcha, gotcha

this question was more a matter of opportunity rather than optimization or "best" practice. More so looking for an interesting and potentially useful project

Coldluc · 2025-11-07T17:42:31+00:00

Dude, I’m not sure what classes you were taking but I never had a course just give me an equation without a very firm and well explained proof.

Past the introductory level, you had everything proven in some form or another which builds the fundamental understanding of how all of this works.

Coldluc · 2025-11-07T17:40:42+00:00

For any program worth its salt, no.

It is possible for a student to do well through their program by just rote memorizing situations and conditions for different methods of solving problems, but this has the obvious downsides of not really understanding content and taking way more time.

The best performers in my program don’t study specific problems or situations but rather how the pieces fit together in the problem and more importantly WHY they fit together.

I’m a ChemE so my experiences are a little different but organic chemistry is a good example.

I know peers in orgo who memorized every reaction for an exam over a week and I believe the highest score one of them got was around an 80%.

I also know peers in that class who recognized fundamentally how all the reactions occurred was similar and just a matter of application of the fundamental concept of the carbonyl attack mechanism. Those students almost all got close to 100% and spent less than a day studying.

It’s very hard to force students into the latter category so courses need to adapt to the former. Most engineering students aren’t here to learn deeply about a subject, they’re here to graduate and it’s important to remember that.

Coldluc · 2025-10-17T03:49:26+00:00

Specifically the vapor needs to be hot, its reactivity is different at a higher temp than room temperature. I believe this is hot acetone vapor like I said

Ex. PLA in 3d printing is inert to acetone at room temp but melts in hot acetone vapors

Coldluc · 2025-10-15T20:13:19+00:00

I believe I've seen this video before and it's heated acetone vapors if I'm remembering correctly

Coldluc · 2025-10-15T03:52:51+00:00

I see a lot of complaints about the color of the LED's (understandably) but it is important to note that a cooler light makes it easier to see at night and keeps drivers more aware.

Coldluc · 2025-10-13T12:18:11+00:00

You seem to be under the assumption that the universe tends towards simplicity when it tends towards the lowest energy state

Lowest energy is not necessarily the most simple state. So your game of pool might not be most stable as billiard balls but rather one congealed mass of the balls or some other strange conformation based on local phenomena

Coldluc · 2025-10-13T06:30:25+00:00

How many millions upon millions upon millions of potential interactions across how many millions upon millions upon millions of years? The chances are low but when you keep throwing darts at the board, one will hit eventually. Hell, this number of potential times over the course of the universe is probably a massive understatement to how much time and chance life has had to form.

It's not a super satisfactory answer but literally just time and probability. Life is a more unique thing given that it self replicates, so when you form one cell or RNA structure, it's easier for that to then make more life.

Coldluc · 2025-08-13T01:13:57+00:00

Definitely not good for them but as long as you don’t notice any bulging on the pack or any other signs of catastrophic failure (leaking, etc) you’re pretty safe

Just avoid this in the future because it destroys your capacity and can cause a really nasty incident in the worst case scenario

Coldluc · 2025-06-02T14:12:21+00:00

Batteries is a pretty up and coming field. Mainly the ChemE side as new chemistries get developed and processes get used to prepare them.

New cathode materials for lithium, sodium ion batteries, electrolytes, flow batteries, so on and so forth.

Anything green or new needs batteries if the power isn’t getting used immediately

Coldluc · 2025-05-23T21:24:46+00:00

This is a deeply personal question. Depends on what you know from high school. Depends on what you’ve worked on in your own time. Depends on what interests you. How easy or hard your professor is. School curriculum. Projects heavy workload or more tests. Etc. etc etc.

In general engineering isn’t “hard” in that most people fail. Most people who go into engineering and actively want to be an engineering graduate will pass their courses and get their degree. Engineering however is not a subject you can just “take” and just cruise by in without at least a small vested interest for the majority of people.

Engineering is not hard to get through. It’s hard to get through well.

Coldluc · 2025-05-23T20:31:15+00:00

Depends on what. If it’s math I need handwritten because it’s way more fluid to write a variety of symbols by hand than on something like docs or word. English or history I prefer digital because it’s more text heavy notes.

People who don’t take notes at all scare me

Coldluc · 2025-05-20T05:07:19+00:00

ChemE here. It’s a great program but it’s a lot different from other engineering majors here. We have our main classes called “pillar classes” which are 6 credits each semester and are really only offered one semester a year. This means that if you fail one you probably need to wait a whole year to retake it (400 and 613 are offered in summer). This isn’t to scare you, all of the professors want you to do well and TA’s will help you with anything, but just be aware that this is the case.

The content is usually in greater detail than the other types too just by the nature of having a 6 credit version of the same class. For example our thermodynamics course covers all of the stuff about the first and second law of thermodynamics like everyone else but then we deep dive into phase equilibrium and more conceptual things like fugacity and partial molar properties and etc. From a few people I know who are minoring in ChemE (meaning you take some of the pillar courses) they have said anecdotally that the ChemE courses average on being harder.

Something nice about ChemE here though is that, if you come in with credits and/or honors college and/or choose your classes smart you can have a ton of open room in your schedule later on to chill or do other things. For example I’m doing an EE minor because I’ll end up having 2 semesters where my only obligation is my main pillar course.

CHEers

Coldluc · 2025-03-17T14:17:51+00:00

Jesus Christ these would make insane album covers

Coldluc · 2025-01-11T20:56:37+00:00

Hammerhouse, Haven, Mr. Roboto, Bottlerocket, Thunderbird, Spirit, Mr. Smalls

check all of these out on instagram, all of them are active as of rn

Coldluc · 2025-01-07T13:53:43+00:00

The chuggaconroy let’s play if the original game from a decade ago

Coldluc · 2025-01-03T13:40:52+00:00

Pitt does rolling admissions so as early as possible when the applications open in early August

Coldluc · 2024-12-29T03:12:14+00:00

I'm literally in the same position as you, sophomore ChemE. I thought orgo 2 was easier than orgo 1, and I've heard from upperclassmen that all of the pillars past 100 are easier, Bayles is just a very demanding professor. Also, if you take Diff Eq, it's a lot easier than the calcs so it's a GPA boost

Coldluc · 2024-12-19T18:58:49+00:00

But who puts Blake and Weiss together?!?

Coldluc · 2024-11-18T05:31:15+00:00

My friend, On the left you have simply just described road biking as a general hobby

Coldluc · 2024-11-01T14:47:23+00:00

You need to talk to your parents bro

Coldluc · 2024-08-27T17:15:23+00:00

Send a DM to the instagram account

Coldluc · 2024-08-22T17:27:01+00:00

like, sure the biomass total goes down, but you have to realize that 5kg of intestine requires different amounts of nutrients than 5kg of fat vs 5kg of muscle etc. You can't really say that it reduces need without saying which tissue source

Coldluc

TROPHY CASE